


Nighttime Wandering

by BiblioMatsuri



Series: All the Happy Children [5]
Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Posthumous Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1921923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiblioMatsuri/pseuds/BiblioMatsuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin can't sleep. Kuro cheers him up by being an adorable little demon-cat. </p><p>Set at some potential point after the current story arc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nighttime Wandering

Rin wakes up at four in the morning, too early to be awake and way too late to even try to sleep.

He stifles a moan of complaint, kicking away the tangled sweat-soaked sheets and tip-toeing out of the room. A few seconds fiddling with the lock, a step up and he's outside, the cool night air carrying his fears away. He grins, sharp and white and playful. Rin has never feared the dark.

Then he pauses, considering the distance. It'd be easier to go down, but he really doesn't want to, so Rin climbs, clinging to windowsills and minute cracks and gaps in the walls. All that evasion and survival training had to be good for something.

He reaches, swings up and onto the roof, a night chorus of birds and beasts echoing over the campus. Even in the depths of a city, there is nature, if you know how to look. It's kind of a shame – if it weren't stupidly late at night, he could have just gone to look for Shiemi-chan's garden. It couldn't be that hard to find, considering it and the neighboring supply shop are the only really green places in the school. There're the odd patches of grass and trees and maybe a few flowers scattered around, but they're not the same. Maybe it's strange to think so, considering he's lived in a city for most of his life, but it's not worth wondering why.

He shrugs to himself, feeling rough roof tiles slide under his feet. Rin starts, realizing he hadn't even stopped to grab shoes. It's not like he needs them – he's spent enough time up on this darn roof to know it backwards and forwards by now – but it's still weird, being barefoot outside. It wasn't like he'd ever liked shoes, really. The stupid things were so annoying; they pinched and rubbed blisters when they were new and pinched and flopped and looked like crap when they were old, and the way he went through them he really only got a few months' use out of each pair. It's not like it was his fault he didn't like sitting still. Oh, and the old man would always get on his case about how expensive it could get to buy new shoes, and how on Earth had he managed to rip a hole in a brand-new pair, and he was paying back every cent of the cost in hard labor, now get that broom and clean up this mess!

…Damn it. Something in his stupid eyes.

Rin shakes his head from side to side, looking for something, anything to distract himself with. In the end, he settles on "up". He doesn't know much about the stars, just that they're really big, really hot glowing things that are really far away, like suns, and that's pretty much it. The moon was simpler, just a big old round rock floating around the earth, bright and white and coloring everything in blue and silver. _It's pretty_ , he thinks very quietly, because guys aren't supposed to think things like "the moonlight is pretty", not unless they're lame girly-boy artsy types, or maybe just weird like Shima.

Crap. Not thinking about Shima. Not, not, not…

He growls, turns and jumps off the roof, lands on an outbuilding with a slight hiss of surprise. He hadn't planned that, but whatever, he was fine. He looks around, his usual look of slight surprise firmly on his face. He hasn't been here before. He thinks the building is some kind of tool shed, but the roof is pretty sturdy. Good thing, too.

He shrugs again and flops down on the edge of the roof, dangling his feet over the side. Letting out a sigh, he wonders why the birds have stopped singing. Not because he's some lame poet or something, it's just weird! They were so loud a few minutes ago, and now they're gone, that or so still and quiet they might as well be. Rin wonders why he's angry. It's not like it matters what a bunch of loud-ass little birds do anyway.

He huffs and slides off the roof, finding himself on the ground, hard-packed dirt strewn with rocks. He glares at nothing in particular. Stupid headmaster and his stupid weird plans. Why the heck do he and Yukio have to live in that crap-hole of a building anyway? It's nowhere near any of their classes. Okay, so they can still get to cram school from the building, but that's true all over the school. He'd have just as much luck sleeping in a freaking hallway, and it would probably be less drafty.

Weird-ass school.

Rin sighs. He doesn't really feel that much better than he did when he sneaked out, even if he at least feels a different kind of lousy.

Then he's hopping in place, a furry clamp gripping his worn sleep shirt, tiny claws pricking through the fabric and a glowing glare right next to his face.

"Gah, Kuro!" he yelps, and the silence is shattered with all the subtlety of a ten-ton sack of bricks.

_Rin! You left._

"So?" he sputters, peeling the indignant feline off of his chest. "What's the big deal? I go off by myself all the time."

_You didn't tell me you were going._

And Rin being Rin, he sees through the demon-kitty snit-fit in a heartbeat. "Aw, crap. Kuro, buddy, I'm really sorry."

 _You'd better be_ , the cait sith accuses.

Rin winces, embarrassed. "I'll warn you next time I randomly go exploring, okay?"

They stay in silence for a moment, Kuro's tails twitching as he settles into Rin's arms. _You could get lost, and I don't want that._

"Well, I won't, so stop worrying," Rin says, and that is that. At least for a few seconds. Maybe. Cats aren't really known for taking orders, and even if Kuro isn't a normal cat…

_When you stop being in trouble._

Rin laughs softly. "That'll be the day."

 _What day?_ Kuro asks innocently.

Rin doesn't answer, just turns back to the dorm and looks up at the room he shares with Yukio.

"Hey, Kuro?"

The cat blinks up at him.

"Is it weird that one of my best friends is a talking demon cat?"

 _Nope_ , he answers cheerily. Then Kuro lit up like a Christmas tree. _Best friends?_

"Well, yeah," Rin says matter-of-factly. "You're my buddy, and my familiar."

Clambering up to his usual perch on Rin's head, Kuro replies in an even more self-satisfied tone than usual, _Rin says so!_

"…Whatever you say, Kuro."

Rin blinks, eyes sliding almost closed. What do you know, he might be able to catch a nap before Yukio kicks him out of bed after all.

Rin grins, sharp white and happy, and sets off to try to sneak back into his dorm room. He almost makes it, even remembering to step over the tripwire Yukio set for whatever crazy Yukio-reason, but gets tripped up by a pile of Shonen Jump magazines on the floor.

The next thing he hears is an aggravated "Nii-san!", and Rin starts looking for an escape route.

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by Love Psycho over on FF.N.


End file.
